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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27476146">saying to each other "is that the man?"</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/secretsarenotforfree/pseuds/secretsarenotforfree'>secretsarenotforfree</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Castle (TV 2009)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Because OFC They Do, Bets &amp; Wagers, Everyone Ships Caskett, Everything Good Happened Because of LT, F/M, LT is the main character and don't THAT throw you for a loop, M/M, Original Characters - Freeform, Third Party Investment, Third Person Acount, we owe the man our lives</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-11-09</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-11-09</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 19:35:02</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>4,923</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27476146</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/secretsarenotforfree/pseuds/secretsarenotforfree</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>It’s coming onto a year and a half and LT gets his wish.</p><p>He not only has his quiet back, but this time around it came with a free side of a New Favorite Past Time, and he is vastly enjoying himself. He, and the rest of the precinct with two eyes in their head. They watch as The Detectives That Could turn into the Four Musketeers That Can, though LT couldn’t tell you when, where, or how.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Kate Beckett/Richard Castle, LT Tolliver &amp; 12th Precinct &amp; Family</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>5</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>14</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>saying to each other "is that the man?"</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>so i'm in this lovely discord group that loves castle, and i asked if anyone had written the sort of fics from an outsides point of view. potentially from LT, everyone's favorite background officer. to be clear,  i know ZILCH about this man and his real life and there have been a lot of creative liberties taken in the case of his character which, for better or for worse, has his real name, but i still had fun. tried to be true to him! and to my caskett babies :) i wrote the first six pages of this not sober at 1 AM so...take that into account.</p><p>(philip looks like the scrumptious paolo montalban in my head. do not ask me why.)</p><p>title from 'everybody knows' by the wanted</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>Quiet wasn’t really a word usually associated with police precincts.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Especially not precincts in New York, New York, in precincts where the most out of this world thing can happen in the middle of the streets and not one eye will bat, or even bother to remember. Because </span>
  <em>
    <span>that </span>
  </em>
  <span>certainly didn’t make all their jobs harder. And it was hard. God help him, he loved it, but sometimes all he could do was drag himself home and about to fall into his couch before he made it to his own bedroom. It was exhausting. But he loved it. And for all his quietness, and careful choosing of words, LT Tolliver was good at observing. He was good at noticing what people didn’t.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>And he noticed when his second home stopped being </span>
  <em>
    <span>quiet</span>
  </em>
  <span>.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The Twelfth wasn’t full of a terrible lot of young blood.  For whatever reason, firing or shifting around or their reputation for some of the oddest unsolved murders, most of the people there were older. Thirties and up, with only a couple of ‘kids’. LT himself hadn’t been there that long, but he’d celebrated the big 30 almost a year ago now. To summarize, there weren’t a lot. And when one showed up, LT. noticed.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>They all did.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>It was those two first. Kevin Ryan, crystal clear blues that spoke nothing of his time of Vice, whatever demons he held near forcibly held back with the power of a sunny smile and an eagerness and seriousness that somehow managed to be entirely compatible. Then Javier Esposito - a recent transfer who needed a change of scenery to try and stop seeing his lost partner around every corner, experience weighing even in his free flowing jokes. Both, a bit jaded. Had seen a bit too much of the ugly bits of life to ever look at the world in a certain way again. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>LT hadn’t had much seniority at this point. His record was clean, neat, nothing to be ashamed  of, but nothing to write home about either. He was still learning which bathroom was closer to an interrogation room, which stairwell you should avoid if you didn’t choke on cigarette smoke from  the older diehards in the department, the name of the cute little medical examiner at the elbow of their current ME. All that he lacked, but still, after Captain Montgomery gave his welcoming speech and they were in the midst of the HR presentation, LT still took the time to take him aside. To call him sir, and ask if he had paired together any of the newbies yet.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Captain Montgomery was all bushy lip and kind eyes. “Not yet, son.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Might he suggest the blonde kid and the ex military?</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Any reason why?”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Just a feeling. He had always been good at group work in college.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>L.T. had his bachelors in Architecture, but he rarely talked about it. Getting a college degree was something that his old man had fallen just short of, circumstance robbing him of that particular dream even  while furnishing another, and he had agreed to go. Agreed on the technicality that he would enroll at the academy right afterwards, and his dad wouldn’t have anything to say about it. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>For whatever reason, maybe LT had happened to sound particularly convincing, or Captain Montgomery had been thinking along that path even without him, from that day on he rarely saw one without the other. Bickering at crime scenes, competing for most disgusting pizza toppings with ingredients in the break room fridge that one time Bakerman had brought Terrific Nick’s, sparring together. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>His gut had been right after all. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>They looked right as a matching set.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>And it was just them, being young and funny and solving cases left and right without any real corralling (which got them in trouble more often than not), and then there had been news. Velasquez had heard that the youngest woman to ever make detective at the Academy was heading to </span>
  <em>
    <span>them </span>
  </em>
  <span>and it was all a little murmur of excitement that heralded Kate Beckett’s arrival even before she walked into the Twelfth.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The rumors had been true. She </span>
  <em>
    <span>was </span>
  </em>
  <span>young, with hair dyed a dark red and a bob that she kept absolutely perfect, not a hair out place. She came booted heel first, attitude second, a ramrod straight back and careful pink lipstick. The kind of pretty where even if you didn’t swing that way (and LT didn’t) you would still stop to take in her features and think maybe there was a divine plan after all if pieces of art were just walking around like that. Detective Beckett had a rare smile and a rarer laugh, one mostly heard only when she joined the now ragtag group of younguns.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>They brought new life to the Twelfth, yes, but that had been the first ruining of LT’s quiet. He was annoyed about it for weeks (maybe a month) but it didn’t take long for him to soften. To follow Montgomery’s suit and do maybe a little parenting, a little earnest lurking in case they needed him. He volunteered to guard the interrogation room when they were there, got himself situated on the rotating group of cops that babysat - ahem, </span>
  <em>
    <span>were on their team </span>
  </em>
  <span>- of the three detectives.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He liked to notice. Liked to see the people around him in their lives, their ups and their downs to care about for and with them. That was what you did with family, and LT cared about his family. In and outside of his blood relations. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>(Cared about them, of course, in a way differently than his heart </span>
  <em>
    <span>cared </span>
  </em>
  <span>itself to 80 beats per minute when he got lunch at the bakery a few doors down with the most handsome man LT had ever laid eyes on. In his case, LT cared about exactly how hard he was kneading that dough and if somehow he couldn’t figure out a reason to arrest him for being criminally attractive in the vicinity of the place LT was </span>
  <em>
    <span>trying </span>
  </em>
  <span>to do a job at.)</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Time had passed. The kids blended into the quiet, organized, relaxed ship that Montgomery helmed, and he didn’t notice the lack of quiet anymore. The loud discussions over Chinese he overheard when LT was pulling his jacket to get ready for home, or the three person Secret Santa crowded over Detective Beckett’s desk at a lull in the precinct Christmas Party, they didn’t stand out as much to him.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>That was a world LT had been living in a month ago.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Alas and forsooth, as LT’s Shakespeare quoting younger sister would say, that was not the world he was living in now.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>That world had been cratered by a meteor shaped like mystery writer Richard Castle, of all the damn people in New York. Truly a future LT could not have seen coming, even living in New York as long as he had, when he was getting sworn in. Getting used to the oddity of a relative celebrity lounging in their bullpen like he owned the place, flashy scarves and a dramatic redheaded family, and the very obvious mannerisms of an absolute smitten puppy in the workplace. Where the man didn’t even </span>
  <em>
    <span>work</span>
  </em>
  <span>.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The quiet that he so happily was enveloped in every time he finally found a parking space and strode into the Twelfth was now punctuated all over the place with the antics of the ragtag Detectives That Could and their puppy sidekick with a checkbook. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>And wasn’t that a sentence to choke yourself up on?</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>It takes him ages to get resettled. Ages in LT World of course, a timeline that dissolved the same day that the main characters name of the novels the mystery writer was apparently writing made its way around the precinct and LT could only feel sympathy. He too, knew what it was like to pine after someone inaccessible for all intents and purposes.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He decides to take some pity on the new guy. To try and help him out considering LT couldn’t do the same for himself. So he thanks Castle for the coffee maker. Subtly brings up Detective Beckett in an attempt to hear how it was going, though that last thing proved too easy to accomplish. The man was only too happy to start talking about the snappy mouthed woman who’s path LT had decided long ago to stay out of while she was on the hunt. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>(Which, more power to her, because LT preferred his murders easy when he could get them. They could take all the weird ones they wanted.)</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>In his adoring spiel, whether the man knew how it sounded or not, LT heard something he could  help with. Snagged on a particular grievance in all of Castles moaning and groaning.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I mean it’s just a coffee order, right? It’s not nuclear codes, or Presidential secrets, for Chrissakes.” Castle releases a huff even as his thumb brushes along a bristled cheek, focusing half on LT and the coffee he was making.  “Although if you guys know any of those.” at this he swings the full force of dark blues on him, pointing a stirrer at him “I want to know all of them.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Now see </span>
  <em>
    <span>that</span>
  </em>
  <span>, that was easy. Having someone go on a coffee run when the large amounts of detectives were going through reports, or letters, or some mass of information, was common at the Twelfth. LT could rattle off more than half of his colleagues orders perfectly if you put him on the spot right now, and guess pretty accurately at the ones he didn’t have down pat.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>So he takes pity.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He writes it down on a napkin and tells Castle that it didn’t come from him, and hopes that maybe it smooth over things a bit so that maybe LT can have his quiet again. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Because if this is going to become LT’s new every day, he would really like it back.</span>
</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>
  <span>It’s coming onto a year and a half and LT gets his wish.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He not only has his quiet back, but this time around it came with a free side of a New Favorite Past Time, and he is vastly enjoying himself. He, and the rest of the precinct with two eyes in their head. They watch as The Detectives That Could turn into the Four Musketeers That Can, though LT couldn’t tell you when, where, or how. The four of them take that peculiar power and turn it into a magnet, and suddenly things shift again. Complicated cases were appearing on their doorstep more often than LT had ever seen, and they all were swiftly directed to them. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Peeking in on those murders is fun. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Work </span>
  </em>
  <span>is more fun, even for officers that don’t get to work  with the kids too often. Overhearing the remarkably witty, decisive dressings downs happening along with regular suspect interrogation at the door was like a free comedy podcast, and LT truly did love his podcasts.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>(It was a podcast, the logo showing atop his phone screen while he was on break, that had Hot Baker start up a conversation. Grin at him with crinkly eyes and dimples and introduce himself as Phillip Medina and ask what exactly would he qualify as indecent exposure if he streaked on a dare in college and basically stole LT’s heart right there.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>It’ll be six months much sooner than could be called later.)</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>This New Favorite Past Time was watching two kids fall in love right in front of their faces. Say what you want about that Richard Castle, but the man was certainly a writer; the looks he sent Detective Beckett every day was writing the slowest, most drawn out romance story in the world in the middle of a damn police precinct. LT and Philip regularly talked about the recent antics of the game of cat and mouse LT saw every day at work, albeit between tugs of fingers still lightly dusted with flour at the stretchy band of LT’s comfort sweatpants.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Ryan and Esposito start a bet.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The two of them have a notebook where they keep track of everyone’s amount of times, and Scott and James act as accountants as each estimation reaches its date and money must be shelled out. This is honestly the  best place for something like this to happen, because they’re in a room full of people whose business is to pay attention. And in this case, they </span>
  <em>
    <span>want </span>
  </em>
  <span>to pay attention because it’s just so damn entertaining.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Castle now owns the chair next to Detective Beckett’s desk. Everyone knows it, sometimes describing the location of people or things ‘just past Castle’s chair’, and eventually that gets further shortened to CC, an inside joke that the detective and writer must never be allowed to hear about.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>On the other hand, </span>
  <em>
    <span>everyone </span>
  </em>
  <span>knows about the pancake incident. Going to Detective Beckett’s apartment-turned-crime-scene was the gig that absolute everyone in the precinct wanted to get even if they couldn’t explicitly say so, the stars shining down benevolently on LT once again and gaining him a perimeter, caution tape placing assignment. Years of button  downs and pantsuits have him blinking a bit when he takes in the worn purple shirt and sloppy ponytail, but it gets his attention more that Castle looks to have not walked in just this morning before the body appeared. It </span>
  <em>
    <span>looks </span>
  </em>
  <span>as if he spent the night instead, received instead of dropping in, and LT’s texting the precinct groupchat the moment he’s done with his task.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>To say that the records dealing with this incident were among the most checked out from the archives, would be an understatement. Ryan gave the people what they wanted and reenacted his iconic line about refusing to cooperate and, along with Esposito, will willingly detail the events with all sorts of salacious embellishments to anyone who wants to hear.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Salacious embellishments that have a right to exist when Castle and Detective Beckett stroll around the precinct like a married couple. A coffee giving, crime solving, deny-each-other-what-you-both-want, married couple that has LT and the rest of the department aw-ing and gossiping like mad.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>It’s all terribly, terribly entertaining and exasperating at the same time.</span>
</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He invites them to the wedding.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He invites half the precinct, even with Philip insisting they should try to keep it small, and is pleased that the kids think he’s cool enough to RSVP in more than enough time. Even if when the day arrives the L.A. incident and Montgomery’s booming Parental Talk is only about a week behind them when LT is going to say I do for the first and last time.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>(Proposing had been a small and private thing, on one knee on Philip’s side of the bed half dressed for the day, admitting that he couldn’t see his life with him. Couldn’t see himself gently stroking anyone else’s hair,  letting loose on the highway and attempting to sing to Beethoven with, dreaming about a future with, or being without.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>LT was a simple man.  When he saw something good, something wonderful, he wasn’t going to let it go past him. After the time he’d wasted hesitating, he didn’t want to waste any more if he could.)</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He remembers to check on  them much later, after the vows and Philip being a vision in a white suit, after the new weight of a gold ring that shone on the hand clasped in his husbands. After a first dance to a Billie Holiday song and speeches and all the wonderful things LT would remember forever. He remembers only when Philip excuses himself to go to the bathroom with a kiss that warms him from the inside out. Esposito and Lanie are having a rhythm off to the tune of an Earth, Wind and Fire song, and Ryan’s...somewhere. LT doesn’t see him.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>What his gaze does catch on is the Twelfth’s beloved odd couple, talking animatedly at their table. Detective Beckett's loose bun is romantic when paired with the look in her eyes when she looks at her partner, all playful crossed arms and a squint of perfect eyeliner. Castle’s velvet suit jacket is draped on  the back  of his chair and he leans forward, elbows on  his knees, ever engaged, ever sparring as fast as his tongue could take him. Her dress is high necked and backless, and her heels are kicked up against Castle’s chair, heels crossed while the spiky heels threaten to get caught on the jacket lapels.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He thinks about how Velasquez has an electronic alert set on Doctor Josh’s Facebook page for when his relationship status will inevitably have to change. He thinks about how he, Scott, and Velasquez burned the newspaper talking about Castle and Gina fighting after the news broke that they were officially over, warm flames and cold beer. He thinks that Castle has grown from  puppy, to loyal companion, to someone who looks at Detective Beckett the way LT had at Philip the day he proposed to him. He thinks that for a man as observant as Castle, it’s a bit amusing to see everything he misses about Detective Beckett. The way she has changed around and because of him, and how he has too, and it’s good. Everyone can see its good, and LT is observant. He is quiet. And he knows.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>LT wonders, with the warmth in chest from a day filled with love, if the two of them notice that they’re too close to even masquerade as friends. That there’s a bubble around them even in the populated ballroom, and that the bridal bouquet resting between their drinks LT had specifically asked Philip to throw in her direction earlier in the night.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He wonders this until his phone beeps, and there’s an invitation to </span>
  <em>
    <span>join </span>
  </em>
  <span>his hubby in the bathroom. LT grins, stops the wondering, and goes to meet his future instead for the first of what he knows will be many happy, domestic trysts.</span>
</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>
  <span>He cries, when Evelyn asks him to be a pallbearer.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Big teas that stream down his face after LT chokes out an acceptance and his hand shakes as he presses the off button. Philip holds him, there on the couch, all the magic and love of only a month ago shadowed by this sadness. This grief that winds through every member of the Twelfth’s family, that lurks in the doorway of an office that will start to gather dust, in the lack of a booming, parental voice and a presence you always knew had your back.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>It’s an honor, and LT knows it, and it’s a bit too much to bear.</span>
</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>
  <span>The service was beautiful.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The choir that Roy Montgomery had been a part of, a secret to all his officers, sings the Captain’s favorite Luther Vandross song, and everyone who speaks has nothing but honest, real, lovely things to say. He was a lot of things, their captain, and those that loved him loved every part of him.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The service was beautiful, as was the burial, and the speech that his favorite protege gave, but that’s not what everyone will remember.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>They will remember the crack of a shot that rang out, blasphemous and cruel in a veterans cemetery, and tried to take out another of their own on the heels of another devastating loss. They will remember staining the grass after the EMT’s loaded Detective Beckett into an ambulance, the feral way that Castle and Lanie refused to be separated from her, the presence of a rifle that had the audacity to be missing the innate evil that had fired it. They will remember that sometimes, things aren’t going to be safe, and good.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>LT holds Philip for a long time that night, quiet, throat raw from held back emotion and chest tight. He thanks his lucky stars that the sniper only had one target, and regrets such a selfish joy. He thinks that his family is hurting, and he hurts that he can’t fix it. Can’t make it better.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>This isn’t a kind of quiet he likes.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>This is broken and ugly and breathes, rattling, every day that the ragtag group falls bleeding and fractured on the bullpen floor for all to see, and LT doesn’t like it.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>(He’ll take </span>
  <em>
    <span>loud</span>
  </em>
  <span>.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Anything, anything’s better than this.)</span>
</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>
  <span>It’s bad for a while.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The Detective does not return, even if her boys do.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>LT makes personally sure that the precinct coffee deliveries are on time and even stays overnight to fix it the night that Castle falls asleep on Detective Beckett’s desk and the odd whistling of the machine threatens to fill a void that it couldn’t hope to.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>(He did bring her flowers.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Philip had personally overseen the construction of the water lily arrangement, and he gives it to her with a little kiss to the Detectives cheek. She hugs them both, one head over each shoulder, weak and smelling of antiseptic, and whispers a thank you.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>LT is there the day she checks out, part of the tiny police escort keeping pace with the wheelchair to her dads waiting, ancient Cadillac. He is surprised to not see Castle, but he says nothing. Just waves, with the other precinct members as she drives away, and hopes that she comes back better. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>For her.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>For all of them.)</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Time passes.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Philip surprises him with a cat from the animal shelter, all calico, amber eyes, and a notch in her ear, and when she yowls at LT and head buts his nose he falls in love, just as he did with their cats new dad. The two of them had never been children people - they liked kids, but they didn’t really want one of their own - and Violet fits perfectly in whatever that space might have been. They have to shut the door on her when they’re having alone time, because she follows them around everywhere, but it’s worth it. Worth it when she falls asleep in the window of the bakery the bank finally gave them the loan to purchase, worth it when she begs at LT’s feet for a piece of his Kobe beef, something he treats himself to only once a month, and worth it when she falls asleep sprawled atop Philip’s lap like he’s a bed and not a person.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>No one talks as much about the bet at work anymore.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>It feels tasteless, somehow, when Castle’s haunted eyes stop showing up too, and it’s just Ryan and Esposito, operating on automatic and seeming incomplete. When James, stuck doing paperwork more than not, lets everyone know that Detective Beckett has requested sick leave of two and a half months. When the release date of the new Nikki Heart comes out and there isn’t a private launch party like there’s been for the last two years in the break room.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>His hands hurt from clapping when the Detective finally comes back, all grey turtleneck, past trauma, and sharp edges, and LT hurts for them all. She looks like Brooks did when he came back from a stint in Vice that landed him in the hospital - inherently mistrustful, deeply changed, and entirely unsure how to come back from it all. LT prays that he continues his streak of luck, of only minor injuries in the line of duty, so that Philip won’t have to see him like that. Won’t have to hurt for him.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He’s getting lunch with Philip when the groupchat, which had fallen to the bottom of his messages with collective disuse, pings once more. It’s Velasquez, telling them all that Castle had been spotted in the lobby, and LT nearly chokes on his croissant. Kisses the laugh right off of his husbands face about his investment in his coworkers epic love story and promises he’ll make up for leaving early later tonight.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>LT takes the steps for once when he reaches the precinct, long legs eating up the floors, and makes it just in time to see them together again for the first time in forever. He’s not the only one looking - it’s him, and Harold peeking up from his computer, James and Scott loitering at the base of the stairs, Drake stirring his Five Hour Energy into his coffee cup in the break room with way too much vigor.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>They two don’t fit quite yet - shattered pieces and deeply hurt ones don’t naturally meld - but something still feels right to LT when he takes them in again.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He nudges Ryan later and asks if his bet still stands.</span>
</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>
  <span>James tells them that the expense reports that the team has been filing, is once again bereft of any mentions of coffee, and they all give a little fist pump of victory. The subjects of the longest running bet that the precincts ever had get blown up, cuffed together, nearly drowned, and go above and beyond to prove how batshit it is that they’re still resisting what every damn other person can see. Everyone elses bets are timing out, Ryan and Esposito’s wooden box of bet money becoming fuller, and there’s more than a little irritation. More than a little bit of discussion of just locking them in a closet and getting it over with, or prompting some sort of confession. LT is the only one to keep his patience and cool. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>
    <span>He’s got faith.</span>
  </em>
</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>
  <span>It’s been quite the year.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Violet, despite being an indoor cat under </span>
  <em>
    <span>strict instructions </span>
  </em>
  <span>not to leave the house, meows their heads off at 4 AM about a dog she saw through their window in the alley next door. It’s clearly docile and hurt, and LT for  once is the one to give in. To have Philip be the one to pick up some dog food, to give the scruffy, collie, terrier something mix a gentle bath in their tug to wrap his wounds. He and Philip celebrate their second anniversary at the restaurant they’ve always dreamed of going to, and LT has happiness in his heart. Enough to remain hopeful even when Detective Beckett gets involved in her mothers case again and resigns. Then asks to come back barely a day later.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>LT is the last hold out to have not had to make a second bet about how long it would be until the detective and the mystery writer would get together. He had made the most far reaching one, forseeing a long haul rather than a short burst, and the time period he’d chosen drew closer every day.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He’s making a mental note to bring the money with him to work the next day, to finally fill in that tally next to </span>
  <em>
    <span>Tolliver </span>
  </em>
  <span>in Ryan’s notebook and shell out his contribution, while he grocery shops. Picks up the flour that Philip needs to try new recipes, the chicken &amp; broccoli dog food that Watson, sandy faced and missing toothed, loved. The sardines Violet got as a treat on top of her regular food. LT’s backseat is filled with bags, weighed down with love, and he’s on his last stop. The wine that Philip had made very clear would get him laid whenever he got home. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He’s considering two different bottles, Philip’s already securely in his basket, when the bell jingles. It’s not a terribly big, bodega sort of place, but it’s clean. It’s organized, and the handwriting on the bright pink and green labels is active and easy to read. LT doesn’t spare the other customers a thought until he hears the very, very familiar sounds of a voice spinning a story. Spinning a story in a tone reserved for one person, and one person only, whoever might overhear be damned. Logically, he had known that he was only a few blocks from the loft he’d only heard about, but it was thing to know and another to witness.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Sidling back a bit behind a display, LT uses his impressive height, looks over the aisles, and sees them.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Sees Detective Beckett laughing, smiling. Sees the familiar way that Castle flicks a honey brown curl out of her eye, the warm, booming tone of a story who’s beginning LT missed. Sees Detective Beckett wrap her hands on the lapels of his easy flannel and drag him down to a comfortable kiss.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>A kiss that LT </span>
  <em>
    <span>knows </span>
  </em>
  <span>is comfortable because c’mon, he’s married.  He’s been doing a lot of kissing, for years now, and he knew how they all felt. The goodbye ones, the forgetful ones, the new and hesitant ones. The passionate ones. He’d given and received them all.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>And this one, that grew slowly and wonderfully, Castle’s crinkled eyes and arms winding around her waist, pulling Detective Beckett like she was close but not close enough, was comfortable. Was familiar. Was magic in a way that made LT feel justified for being so invested for all these years. They are quiet, and not, easy in their love and easy together, and it says volumes about their time together. To the time that had spooled out for all in the precinct to see, and the change that no one had. The detective is only a month into her two month suspension, and LT now knows </span>
  <em>
    <span>exactly</span>
  </em>
  <span> what she’s been doing with all that time off. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He waits until they’ve chosen their selection, paid, and left, before approaching the counter.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>And the next day, when he dutifully hands over the five crisp twenties, secret held tight under his badge, LT thinks it’s the best hundred dollars he’s ever spent.</span>
</p><p><br/>
<br/>
</p>
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